On November 9-11, Fan Expo Vancouver (FEV) 2017 is looking almost exactly like 2016, but with a slightly different guest lineup from CW’s group of superhero shows. For fans wanting an event to meet their favourite television heroes, this fact is good. The latest crop of guest announcements includes Grant Gustin, Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Neal McDonough, Paul Blackthorne and Caity Lotz.

For others craving diversity year after year, there’s always Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) in March. Given the distance, to travel there is easy. The expense is not. I usually attend both. For FEV, I’ll be there because of The Fonz! Yes, I love Henry Winkler and all he’s done in the entertainment industry.

As for what’s in store for this upcoming event, I offer my look back at last year’s show. This article was first printed in Absolute Underground Magazine:

Before Stephen Sommers version of The Mummy gets fully buried in the wake of the upcoming 2017 film next month, I have to fondly recall the elements that I enjoyed from this past iteration. The 1999 film was heavily inspired by the pulps. Although its star, Rick O’Connell (played by Brendan Fraser) would gladly let his son Alex keep the world at peace, I do not think a consortium existed to help develop the continuity needed for the spin-off material.

If that was the case, I imagine the character of Anubis would play an important role throughout the entire saga instead of being a background character for the first two movies. He is the god of death, and before Osiris landed in the Underworld and succeeded to the role, was in control of many a person’s fate should anyone die within his domain, the land of Egypt.

Although the Wild ARMS video game franchise was never hugely popular in North America as it were in Japan, the dedicated fan-base will be celebrating on Dec 20, 2016. Twenty years ago, it was released in the Land of the Rising Sun. Recent news reports reveal Sony (the intellectual property owner) and former staff from Media.Vision (original developer) are involved in bringing the property back to life. It will be based on the original game and Sony’s mobile publishing division ForwardWorks is helming this latest entry. Past cell-phone games used the name to dress up what was basically Tetris and a simple shooter. The hope here is that the new product will be a full-on J-RPG, and most reports hint at this direction.

If this speculation is correct, the audience will be limited to Japan at first. In the time being, I will be hooking up my PlayStation2 to the big screen to enjoy all the games all over again. The love I have for this game inspired by the American Old West and Steampunk will be re-ignited. I will attempt to finish all these original games by the time Wild Arms North American Platinum Anniversary takes place in March 2017. While this later date will not feel the same, lots of people don’t recognize that Star Trek had its pilot shown to NBC February 1965 whereas the broadcast was Sept 1966 — the question asked is which date should be better recognized?

The original game that started it all, featuring Rudy, Jack, and Cecilia.

Creator Akifumi Kaneko left Media.Vision back in 2009 and some fans feared no more Wild Arms will be coming. Fortunately, that was put to rest when Pixel Dynamo reported early in 2016 about Kaneko’s Twitter post. He met with executives to plan the 20th anniversary. Since then, not many continuing reports emerged in the months afterwards about what is happening. In the coming days, I like to see the complete library of the past games be offered on via Sony’s PlayStation Network.

A few great holidays gifts, namely videos, have arrived over at Otaku no Culture. In the coming weeks, reviews of fond classics will be looked at. One such title that must be mentioned right away has to be with Warner Brother’s repackaged 2011 rerelease of The Flash from the 1990’s. Finding this red package under the mistletoe does not mean I’ll get a date with the lovely Amanda Pays — one of the reasons that I always watched this show — but the signature lightning bolt was too easy to recognize when I tried peeking through the wrapping paper.

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